Complete Works (37 page)

C
RATYLUS
: In my view, Socrates, he is not articulating them as he should.

S
OCRATES
: Well, that’s a welcome answer. But are the words he articulates
[430]
true or false, or partly true and partly false? If you tell me that, I’ll be satisfied.

C
RATYLUS
: For my part, I’d say he’s just making noise and acting pointlessly, as if he were banging a brass pot.

S
OCRATES
: Let’s see, Cratylus, if we can somehow come to terms with one another. You agree, don’t you, that it’s one thing to be a name and another to be the thing it names?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes, I do.

[b] S
OCRATES
: And you also agree that a name is an imitation of a thing?

C
RATYLUS
: Absolutely.

S
OCRATES
: And that a painting is a different sort of imitation of a thing?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Well, perhaps what you’re saying is correct and I’m misunderstanding you, but can both of these imitations—both paintings and names—be assigned and applied to the things of which they are imitations, or not?

C
RATYLUS
: They can.

[c] S
OCRATES
: Then consider this. Can we assign a likeness of a man to a man and that of a woman to a woman, and so on?

C
RATYLUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: What about the opposite? Can we assign the likeness of a man to a woman and that of a woman to a man?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes, we can.

S
OCRATES
: And are both these assignments correct, or only the first?

C
RATYLUS
: Only the first.

S
OCRATES
: That is to say, the one that assigns to each thing the painting or name that is appropriate to it or like it?

C
RATYLUS
: That’s my view, at least.

[d] S
OCRATES
: Since you and I are friends, we don’t want to mince words, so here’s what I think. I call the first kind of assignment correct, whether it’s an assignment of a painting or a name, but if it’s an assignment of a name, I call it both correct and
true
. And I call the other kind of assignment, the one that assigns and applies unlike imitations, incorrect, and, in the case of names,
false
as well.

C
RATYLUS
: But it may be, Socrates, that it’s possible to assign paintings incorrectly, but not names, which must always be correctly assigned. [e]

S
OCRATES
: What do you mean? What’s the difference between them? Can’t I step up to a man and say “This is your portrait,” while showing him what happens to be his own likeness, or what happens to be the likeness of a woman? And by “show” I mean bring before the sense of sight.

C
RATYLUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, can’t I step up to the same man a second time and say, “This is your name”? Now, a name is an imitation, just as a painting or portrait is. So, can’t I say to him, “This is your name,” and after that put before his sense of hearing what happens to be an imitation of himself,
[431]
saying “Man,” or what happens to be an imitation of a female of the human species, saying “Woman”? Don’t you think that all this is possible and sometimes occurs?

C
RATYLUS
: I’m willing to go along with you, Socrates, and say that it occurs.

S
OCRATES
: It’s good of you to do so, Cratylus, provided you really are willing, since then we don’t have to argue any further about the matter. So if some such assignments of names take place, we may call the first of [b] them speaking truly and the second speaking falsely. But if that is so, it is sometimes possible to assign names incorrectly, to give them not to things they fit but to things they don’t fit. The same is true of verbs. But if verbs and names can be assigned in this way, the same must be true of statements, since statements are, I believe, a combination of names and verbs. What do you think, Cratylus? [c]

C
RATYLUS
: The same as you, since I think you’re right.

S
OCRATES
: Further, primary names may be compared to paintings, and in paintings it’s possible to present all the appropriate colors and shapes, or not to present them all. Some may be left out, or too many included, or those included may be too large. Isn’t that so?

C
RATYLUS
: It is.

S
OCRATES
: So doesn’t someone who presents all of them, present a fine painting or likeness, while someone who adds some or leaves some out, though he still produces a painting or likeness, produces a bad one?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes. [d]

S
OCRATES
: What about someone who imitates the being or essence of things in syllables and letters? According to this account, if he presents all the appropriate things, won’t the likeness—that is to say, the name—be a fine one? But if he happens to add a little or leave a little out, though he’ll still have produced an image, it won’t be fine? Doesn’t it follow that some names are finely made, while others are made badly?

C
RATYLUS
: Presumably.

S
OCRATES
: So presumably one person will be a good craftsman of names [e] and another a bad one?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And this craftsman is named a rule-setter.

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: By god, presumably some rule-setters are good and others bad then, especially if what we agreed to before is true, and they are just like other craftsmen.

C
RATYLUS
: That’s right. But you see, Socrates, when we assign ‘
a
’, ‘
b
’, and each of the other letters to names by using the craft of grammar, if we add, subtract, or transpose a letter, we don’t simply write the name
[432]
incorrectly, we don’t write
it
at all, for it immediately becomes a different name, if any of those things happens.

S
OCRATES
: That’s not a good way for us to look at the matter, Cratylus.

C
RATYLUS
: Why not?

S
OCRATES
: What you say may well be true of numbers, which have to be a certain number or not be at all. For example, if you add anything to the number ten or subtract anything from it, it immediately becomes a different number, and the same is true of any other number you choose. But this isn’t the sort of correctness that belongs to things with sensory [b] qualities, such as images in general. Indeed, the opposite is true of them—an image cannot remain an image if it presents all the details of what it represents. See if I’m right. Would there be two things—Cratylus and an image of Cratylus—in the following circumstances? Suppose some god didn’t just represent your color and shape the way painters do, but made all the inner parts like yours, with the same warmth and softness, and put [c] motion, soul, and wisdom like yours into them—in a word, suppose he made a duplicate of everything you have and put it beside you. Would there then be two Cratyluses or Cratylus and an image of Cratylus?

C
RATYLUS
: It seems to me, Socrates, that there would be two Cratyluses.

S
OCRATES
: So don’t you see that we must look for some other kind of correctness in images and in the names we’ve been discussing, and not insist that if a detail is added to an image or omitted from it, it’s no longer [d] an image at all. Or haven’t you noticed how far images are from having the same features as the things of which they are images?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes, I have.

S
OCRATES
: At any rate, Cratylus, names would have an absurd effect on the things they name, if they resembled them in every respect, since all of them would then be duplicated, and no one would be able to say which was the thing and which was the name.

C
RATYLUS
: That’s true.

S
OCRATES
: Take courage then and admit that one name may be well-given [e] while another isn’t. Don’t insist that it have all the letters and exactly resemble the thing it names, but allow that an inappropriate letter may be included. But if an inappropriate letter may be included in a name, an inappropriate name may be included in a phrase. And if an inappropriate name may be included in a phrase, a phrase which is inappropriate to the things may be employed in a statement. Things are still named and described when this happens, provided the phrases include the pattern of the things they’re about. Remember that this is just what Hermogenes and I claimed earlier about the names of the elements.
⁵⁶
[433]

C
RATYLUS
: I remember.

S
OCRATES
: Good. So even if a name doesn’t include all the appropriate letters, it will still describe the thing if it includes its pattern—though it will describe the thing well, if it includes all the appropriate letters, and badly, if it includes few of them. I think we had better accept this, Cratylus, or else, like men lost on the streets of Aegina late at night, we, too, may incur the charge of truly seeming to be the sort of people who arrive at things later than they should. For if you deny it, you cannot agree that a [b] name is correct if it expresses things by means of letters and syllables and you’ll have to search for some other account of the correctness of names, since if you both deny it and accept this account of correctness, you’ll contradict yourself.

C
RATYLUS
: You seem to me to be speaking reasonably, Socrates, and I take what you’ve said as established.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, since we agree about that, let’s consider the next point. If a name is well given, don’t we say that it must have the appropriate letters?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And the appropriate letters are the ones that are like the things? [c]

C
RATYLUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Therefore that’s the way that well-given names are given. But if a name isn’t well given, it’s probable that most of its letters are appropriate or like the thing it names, if indeed it is a likeness of it, but that some are inappropriate and prevent the name from being good or well given. Is that our view or is it something different?

C
RATYLUS
: I don’t suppose there’s anything to be gained by continuing to quarrel, Socrates, but I’m not satisfied that something is a name if it isn’t well given.

S
OCRATES
: But you
are
satisfied that a name is a way of expressing a thing? [d]

C
RATYLUS
: I am.

S
OCRATES
: And you think it’s true that some names are composed out of more primitive ones, while others are primary?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes, I do.

S
OCRATES
: But if the primary names are to be ways of expressing things clearly, is there any better way of getting them to be such than by making each of them as much like the thing it is to express as possible? Or do you [e] prefer the way proposed by Hermogenes and many others, who claim that names are conventional signs that express things to those who already knew the things before they established the conventions? Do you think that the correctness of names is conventional, so that it makes no difference whether we accept the present convention or adopt the opposite one, calling ‘big’ what we now call ‘small’, and ‘small’ what we now call ‘big’? Which of these two ways of getting names to express things do you prefer?

C
RATYLUS
: A name that expresses a thing by being like it is in every way
[434]
superior, Socrates, to one that is given by chance.

S
OCRATES
: That’s right. But if a name is indeed to be like a thing, mustn’t the letters or elements out of which primary names are composed be naturally like things? Let me explain by returning to our earlier analogy with painting. Could a painting ever be made like any of the things that are, if it were not composed of pigments that were by nature like the [b] things that the art of painting imitates? Isn’t that impossible?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes, it’s impossible.

S
OCRATES
: Then by the same token can names ever be like anything unless the things they’re composed out of have some kind of likeness to the things they imitate? And aren’t they composed of letters or elements?

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Now, consider what I said to Hermogenes earlier. Tell me, [c] do you think I was right to say that ‘
r
’ is like motion, moving, and hardness or not?

C
RATYLUS
: You were right.

S
OCRATES
: And ‘
l
’ is like smoothness, softness, and the other things we mentioned.

C
RATYLUS
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Yet you know that the very thing that we call ‘
skl
ē
rot
ē
s
’ (‘hardness’) is called ‘
skl
ē
rot
ē
r
’ by the Eretrians?

C
RATYLUS
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: Then are both ‘
r
’ and ‘
s
’ like the same thing, and does the name ending in ‘
r
’ express the same thing to them as the one ending in ‘
s
’ does to us, or does one of them fail to express it?

[d] C
RATYLUS
: They both express it.